More and more, I'm leaving things be. I'm leaving people be. I'm leaving my other half be. I'm leaving my home group be. I'm focusing on changing me and adapting to things as they are. The more I do that, the happier I am, and the more effective I am.
Seeking to change things around me causes discord, even where the change can be argued to be beneficial. The cost of the process of change usually outweighs the benefit in any case, and you're back to square one.
Typically, the only changes I make externally are those unavoidably necessitated by circumstances.
On some days, my home group tries my patience and tolerance. There's an awful lot in my home group I could criticise. The lengthy sharing (though we do now have a 5-minute cap), the long introduction before we get to the topic for the day, the literature that we read. Let's go no further. The fact is, all of these could be different, and I could construct good, traditions-based reasons as to why to change these things. The truth, however, is that what really matters in an AA meeting is the content; the things that people say when they’re sharing and the spirit in which they say these things. Everything else is merely the container. As long as the container successfully contains the contents, it's fine. And it turns out there is nothing wrong with the container after all.
Part of me is always ready to criticise or change meetings or groups I go to. The philosophy is: if I can change something outside of myself, I will feel differently, I will have a different experience of life. This is incorrect. The temptation is to construct and engage in battles in AA because I feel powerless, manipulated, and put upon in other areas.
Instead, I should be trying to change me, not the group, not the meeting, not the conduct of the people in it, but me. If I try hard enough, I can usually dress up my control urges as being in the interests of the group, the meeting, its members, newcomers, or world peace, but the motivation is usually something I personally find objectionable or missing. The group and the meeting are the plastic bag, not the shopping. It's the shopping that counts.
I feel done with seething cauldrons of debate in AA, at any level. I no longer participate actively in online AA discussion and debating groups (e.g. on Facebook). There are ones where people occasionally share a thought, and it's like sharing in a meeting: it's left there, not descended on by the pack. But that's it. There might come a time when I'm called upon to shift back into general service and away from my current (copious) service activities, but I don't relish it, because of the discord, which can be like what Paul Martin calls rocking-chair sobriety: lots of activity, no action.
Some mottos:
Let It Begin With Me
How Important Is It?
Live And Let Live
Don't Get Your Help All Over People
Help Is The Sunny Side Of Control
Grow Where You're Planted
Why Am I Talking? (WAIT)
Why Am I Still Talking? (WAIST)
Take The Cotton Wool From My Ears And Stick It In My Mouth
'Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as good as I can, dress becomingly, talk low, act courteously, criticize no one bit, not find fault with anything, and not try to improve or regulate anybody except myself.'